I know it's relatively controversial, but I am absolutely thrilled at the idea of Arcane, Divine, and Primal (...maybe Psionic later?) spell lists.
They've done a lot with 5th edition to date, but there has been less and less opportunity to publish swaths of exciting new player options that give us something existing options don't.
If they can take these new spell lists and use them as a subclass feature, we can do things that were pretty awkwad initially.
Invoker would be a Divine Wizard
Gish would be an Arcane Paladin with a psychic smite.
Favored Souls would be Divine Sorcerers.
Oath of Ancient paladins could have the full array of Primal spells at their fingertips.
While this might feel like some classes might lose iconic spells, the easy fix is to just do what Wizards has always done for subclasses and simply say, "The following are also part of your spell list.
What I think the idea might be based on is how spells are cast, learned and other such things. Then in classes you can further refine how those things are done.
IMHO, it is too soon to tell as I do not see a lot of info about them but it has been said more info is coming in later UA. So IMHO it is all guess work at this point and guessing on how things may or may not be done in future UA.
It's not a bad idea at all. But I don't think it's going to make it through this revision.
At the moment there's just too much that would fall into the backward compatibility boat. Too many spells, too many lists, too many subclasses.
That being said, I think it's a rather great idea to have 4 completely unique spell lists as the baseline. Arcane, Divine, Primal, and I'd add Eldritch. It's a bit of a cop out that Warlocks are making pacts for long lost spells and power and 90% of it is just Arcane magic. The idea of a Wizard multiclassing into Warlock for some hidden magics they cannot obtain otherwise is just so juicy.
But I think this is a pretty spot on idea for 6th edition, when backward compatibility is a non-issue.
It's not a bad idea at all. But I don't think it's going to make it through this revision.
At the moment there's just too much that would fall into the backward compatibility boat. Too many spells, too many lists, too many subclasses.
That being said, I think it's a rather great idea to have 4 completely unique spell lists as the baseline. Arcane, Divine, Primal, and I'd add Eldritch. It's a bit of a cop out that Warlocks are making pacts for long lost spells and power and 90% of it is just Arcane magic. The idea of a Wizard multiclassing into Warlock for some hidden magics they cannot obtain otherwise is just so juicy.
But I think this is a pretty spot on idea for 6th edition, when backward compatibility is a non-issue.
I agree that saying 1D&D is going to be compatible/fully compatible with 5e can cause issues and I think it might be better to take the best of 5e with new rules and make 6e vs 5ev2. But again it is all in how things are done.
That being said, I think it's a rather great idea to have 4 completely unique spell lists as the baseline. Arcane, Divine, Primal, and I'd add Eldritch. It's a bit of a cop out that Warlocks are making pacts for long lost spells and power and 90% of it is just Arcane magic. The idea of a Wizard multiclassing into Warlock for some hidden magics they cannot obtain otherwise is just so juicy.
But I think this is a pretty spot on idea for 6th edition, when backward compatibility is a non-issue.
Also thought about that. Warlocks already have some exclusive spells like armor of agathys and arms of hadar, makes sense that their magic includes secrets unavailable to other forms of learning. But I'd call it Occult, rather than Eldritch.
On a side note, it always bugged me that fighter has eldritch knight subclass, which has nothing to do with eldritch. While the real eldritch knight is a hexblade, because warlock's magic is eldritch, and to his patron, a hexblade is a knight.
If they do the three that are listed and then do 1/2 of this and 1/2 of that for some classes, ie 1/2 divine and 1/2 arcane would be a Thurge class and or a warlock.
you'll only like it until a cleric starts smiting 6 times under a long sleep... Or Eldritch Knights using superiority die and Lightning Arrow on a critical hit...
😂
But it's fine, I hope they balance it somehow.
By the way, I do not agree with eliminating class specific spells or adding them to the lists, but let's see what happens.
you'll only like it until a cleric starts smiting 6 times under a long sleep... Or Eldritch Knights using superiority die and Lightning Arrow on a critical hit...
😂
But it's fine, I hope they balance it somehow.
By the way, I do not agree with eliminating class specific spells or adding them to the lists, but let's see what happens.
If you have classes that are defined by using specific spells from group A and group B, then you write the abilities of that class, so in the case of smite it would be written in the class info (and possibly with a limitation for multiclassing.)
Idk, I feel like the simplified spell lists, if not coupled with specific class spell lists, would be too much of an oversimplification, and would leave casting classes feeling too samey. Wizard, sorcerer, Warlock? All the same arcane spell list with one or two subclasses that are "primal" or "divine" instead sounds very cookie cutter. Its especially a strong nerf to the wizard, who's main strength had always been the sheer amount of spells they could learn over those of other classes, which was balanced by having relatively sparse class/subclass abilities. If everyone's on the same list, sorcerer is just a better wizard, Warlock is a punchier wizard, bard is just a...wizard, and wizard is basically nothing.
I definitely think class spell lists should remain a thing, with the Arcane/divine/primal division acting more as like creature types but for spells.
The simplified class lists are good in a couple of aspects, mostly that there will still be class and sub-class specific spells, that was confirmed in interview. So Something like find steed will still likely be a paladin only spell. Notably Eldritch blast is not in the arcane spells, spell list, which presumably is because it is remaining warlock only else wise warlock is getting an insane amount of re-work.
Also sorcerers not getting find familiar was always strange, you'd think sorcerers would be the familiar class yet they lacked it. Overall, with the exception of the class specific spells, it will be easier to figure out most of what spells a character actually has access too.
The only class that is really messed up by the simplified spell lists is Bard, in my opinion. Bard would lose access to spells like healing word for example which would kind of impact a support style of play. It could be that while Bard is technically using arcane spell list, they will have magical secrets reworked to allow getting something like healing word at 1st level or what not, we will have to see when they publish the class. Additionally the new simplified spell lists seem to imply that Paladin and Ranger get cantrips now, which makes sense given how both classes were moving that way to fix some of the issues they had, more so Ranger. Oddly enough, Paladin and Ranger also both getting healing word, since healing word is in both Divine and Primal spell lists.
"In future Unearthed Arcana articles, we’ll show how Classes usethese listsand how aClassor SubclassmightgainSpells from another list."
Bear in mind that these lists are not comprehensive in regards to class/subclass spell lists. For the present UA, they're mainly there for the Magic Initiate feat.
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I know it's relatively controversial, but I am absolutely thrilled at the idea of Arcane, Divine, and Primal (...maybe Psionic later?) spell lists.
They've done a lot with 5th edition to date, but there has been less and less opportunity to publish swaths of exciting new player options that give us something existing options don't.
If they can take these new spell lists and use them as a subclass feature, we can do things that were pretty awkwad initially.
While this might feel like some classes might lose iconic spells, the easy fix is to just do what Wizards has always done for subclasses and simply say, "The following are also part of your spell list.
What I think the idea might be based on is how spells are cast, learned and other such things. Then in classes you can further refine how those things are done.
IMHO, it is too soon to tell as I do not see a lot of info about them but it has been said more info is coming in later UA. So IMHO it is all guess work at this point and guessing on how things may or may not be done in future UA.
It's not a bad idea at all. But I don't think it's going to make it through this revision.
At the moment there's just too much that would fall into the backward compatibility boat. Too many spells, too many lists, too many subclasses.
That being said, I think it's a rather great idea to have 4 completely unique spell lists as the baseline. Arcane, Divine, Primal, and I'd add Eldritch. It's a bit of a cop out that Warlocks are making pacts for long lost spells and power and 90% of it is just Arcane magic. The idea of a Wizard multiclassing into Warlock for some hidden magics they cannot obtain otherwise is just so juicy.
But I think this is a pretty spot on idea for 6th edition, when backward compatibility is a non-issue.
I agree that saying 1D&D is going to be compatible/fully compatible with 5e can cause issues and I think it might be better to take the best of 5e with new rules and make 6e vs 5ev2. But again it is all in how things are done.
Also thought about that. Warlocks already have some exclusive spells like armor of agathys and arms of hadar, makes sense that their magic includes secrets unavailable to other forms of learning. But I'd call it Occult, rather than Eldritch.
On a side note, it always bugged me that fighter has eldritch knight subclass, which has nothing to do with eldritch. While the real eldritch knight is a hexblade, because warlock's magic is eldritch, and to his patron, a hexblade is a knight.
Poking the elder evils is half the fun in D&D!
Wait till the Elder Evils poke back.
If they do the three that are listed and then do 1/2 of this and 1/2 of that for some classes, ie 1/2 divine and 1/2 arcane would be a Thurge class and or a warlock.
you'll only like it until a cleric starts smiting 6 times under a long sleep... Or Eldritch Knights using superiority die and Lightning Arrow on a critical hit...
😂
But it's fine, I hope they balance it somehow.
By the way, I do not agree with eliminating class specific spells or adding them to the lists, but let's see what happens.
If you have classes that are defined by using specific spells from group A and group B, then you write the abilities of that class, so in the case of smite it would be written in the class info (and possibly with a limitation for multiclassing.)
Idk, I feel like the simplified spell lists, if not coupled with specific class spell lists, would be too much of an oversimplification, and would leave casting classes feeling too samey. Wizard, sorcerer, Warlock? All the same arcane spell list with one or two subclasses that are "primal" or "divine" instead sounds very cookie cutter. Its especially a strong nerf to the wizard, who's main strength had always been the sheer amount of spells they could learn over those of other classes, which was balanced by having relatively sparse class/subclass abilities. If everyone's on the same list, sorcerer is just a better wizard, Warlock is a punchier wizard, bard is just a...wizard, and wizard is basically nothing.
I definitely think class spell lists should remain a thing, with the Arcane/divine/primal division acting more as like creature types but for spells.
The simplified class lists are good in a couple of aspects, mostly that there will still be class and sub-class specific spells, that was confirmed in interview. So Something like find steed will still likely be a paladin only spell. Notably Eldritch blast is not in the arcane spells, spell list, which presumably is because it is remaining warlock only else wise warlock is getting an insane amount of re-work.
Also sorcerers not getting find familiar was always strange, you'd think sorcerers would be the familiar class yet they lacked it. Overall, with the exception of the class specific spells, it will be easier to figure out most of what spells a character actually has access too.
The only class that is really messed up by the simplified spell lists is Bard, in my opinion. Bard would lose access to spells like healing word for example which would kind of impact a support style of play. It could be that while Bard is technically using arcane spell list, they will have magical secrets reworked to allow getting something like healing word at 1st level or what not, we will have to see when they publish the class. Additionally the new simplified spell lists seem to imply that Paladin and Ranger get cantrips now, which makes sense given how both classes were moving that way to fix some of the issues they had, more so Ranger. Oddly enough, Paladin and Ranger also both getting healing word, since healing word is in both Divine and Primal spell lists.
Bear in mind that these lists are not comprehensive in regards to class/subclass spell lists. For the present UA, they're mainly there for the Magic Initiate feat.